School's out – but not for ‘substitute teacher' Mr Moon

7:43pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

By Aaron Moon

As the secretary at Banstead Community Junior School led me up the stairs to the classroom, I suddenly felt a strange sensation of fear rushing through my body.

As a reporter, dealing with murders, sudden deaths or talking with convicted criminals can occasionally be daunting. But the thought of having to face 35 unsympathetic year five schoolchildren was filling me with terror.

The smell of disinfectant in the corridors triggered memories of my own primary school days and the sight of a pupil sitting outside a classroom having extra tuition suddenly looked extremely inviting: it would be much easier helping him than the intimidating task of teaching a whole class.

Opening the classroom door, the heads and faces of the pupils turned in unison to face me as excited voices whispered as I walked in.

I retreated to the side of the class and settled down, happy to just watch. The teacher, 22-year-old Lauren Channing, is in her first year of teaching and I wondered whether her enthusiasm would have waned yet.

Throwing themselves straight into a task, the class took part in a multiplication game which caused a lot of excitement and noise.

I was surprised with how supportive the pupils were, cheering the underdogs and consoling the losers.

The task soon drew to a close and I was given the opportunity to talk to some of the students and help them with their work. Sitting down with the task of helping the table, I quickly forgot the instructions and began talking to them about the strike.

"The teachers went on strike because they want more money," Melissa Turpin said.

"They don't work that hard, they tell us what to do but it's us that do all the work," Reece Preston said.

"And they get to go home at 3pm." Melissa immediately retorted with such vigour I began to suspect she could well have been a Government plant.

"They do work hard," she said. "They do a lot of planning for all of our lessons and they have to stay afterwards as well. And like my mum says, they're helping to build the next generation."

The rest of the table looked back expressionless before Kieran Read said: "But they get to drink tea in the classroom. I quite like tea but we're not allowed to drink it in the classroom."

Only those in the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the country's largest teaching union, were given the option of striking last Thursday.

Although Miss Channing decided not to, the other year five teacher did strike, which meant her class was kept off school.

I wondered whether the students had envied their peers who had spent the day as they pleased.

"No, not really," Reece Preston said. "We got to watch a video and we've got the cage."

After some initial concerns, I learned the cage was a large fenced area where the students are allowed to play football at break and lunchtimes.

"They're losing out on their education," Melissa said. "They were taunting us a bit about it but we didn't lose a day learning like they did."

Suddenly Miss Channing indicates for everyone to be silent and she asks for each table to put forward their answers. Realising my whole table has got blank sheets after I kept them talking, they all look at me somewhat accusingly.

Spending some time learning about the pupils' views on the strike, I decided to get up in front of the class and experience it from the teacher's perspective.

Writing their answers down on to a white board and constructing a spider diagram suddenly seemed difficult with 35 people watching me. My brain froze and I hoped my messy scrawl would cover my spelling errors.

Being at a successful school which has had two "outstanding" Ofsted reports in a row, my suspicions that it would be a good experience were correct.

Interacting with the students had been rewarding and I left the class feeling positive. But having to prepare the lessons, keep control of a sometimes excitable class and keep up with the marking may have dampened my spirits if I was working full-time. It is undoubtedly hard work, but also enjoyable.

"For the four years at university which I did find tough, it is now worth every minute," Miss Channing said.

"I do think teachers deserve more money, but it's the kids that lose out from striking. And if it's constant striking it is very disruptive."